On July 15th, internet radio as we know it will end. That’s the new date (it was May 15th) that the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has set for internet radio broadcasters like Pandora Media to pay up on retro active royalty payments (increased from 0.0008 to 0.0019), which will see many web casters owing in the millions.

If you want something to Twitter about it, then this fits the 140 character limit just nicely:

May 15, the music will die. Hit the music industry back, don't buy music on May 15 and show support for internet radio. Everyone tweet this.

<a href="http://www.saveourinternetradio.com"><img alt="Save Net Radio!" src="http://media.nikfletcher.com/savenetradioblack.png" border="0" width="150" height="70"/></a>

For the White Button

<a href="http://www.saveourinternetradio.com"><img alt="Save Net Radio!" src="http://media.nikfletcher.com/savenetradiowhite.png" border="0" width="150" height="70"/></a>

For The Aqua Button

<a href="http://www.saveourinternetradio.com"><img alt="Save Net Radio!" src="http://media.nikfletcher.com/savenetradioaqua.png" border="0" width="150" height="70"/></a>

For the Dark Aqua

<a href="http://www.saveourinternetradio.com"><img alt="Save Net Radio!" src="http://media.nikfletcher.com/savenetradioaquadark.png" border="0" width="150" height="70"/></a>

Tags: Net Radio, RIAA

"EMI struck a deal that puts all of us at a disadvantage," one industry executive told Reuters.

For those of you about to complain about the $12/month to get unlimited tracks (like, um, Steve Jobs), check yourself before you riggity wreck yourself. Labels and artists get paid for every radio play and every Yahoo! Music download to the Sansa Connect, whereas we all know iPods are mostly full of not-paid-for MP3s.

At Yahoo! we would like to help maintain a healthy music business, compensating labels and artists at a fair price to consumers. The labels and the consumers have been pretty far apart in this negotiation and we think we’re doing a damn fine job striking a balance between the two with the rich feature set Sansa Connect and reasonable monthly price of Yahoo! Music Unlimited. We hope you think so, too. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, right?

The reason why I'm such a Apple stalwart is this. Steve Jobs knows what it's going to take to have a phenomenally successful product (iPod+iTunes) - and it just so happens that his interests, and those of the consumer (for the most part) are aligned. That's why Apple doesn't criminalise it's customers. That's why we have FairPlay's allowance of 5 authorised computers. That's why we have DRM-free music coming our way from at least one of the major labels. That's why the iTunes Store has been successful. Because it's the easiest way to obtain legitimate tracks online and most importantly, you're not being treated like a pirate. There may be DRM, but it's so unobtrusive in the most part, that people simply haven't cared.

It's not that I'm unwilling to part with my money for content - I always have been, and always will be. It's just I object to being treated like a criminal every time I look to buy music or video. Why should I sit through unskippable anti-piracy messages when I've bought the legitimate god-damn DVD?! If there's one thing that I hate about buying a DVD, it's knowing that some jackass lawyer on a piracy prevention sub-deputy-commitee decided the studio had to throw their message in. As has been said before

"The best way to combat illegal file sharing is to make legal [media] purchasing easier"

"The best way to combat illegal file sharing is to make legal [media] purchasing easier, and avoid criminalising and generally aggravating those who actually do buy content"

I'm off to see Borat tonight, after having pointed out to Susan that the Borat site is almost as bad as the example in her recent post. Mini-critique coming soon. The random photo? Oh that's looking towards the cinema from my kitchen window!

This week is going to be very very busy for me. My End of Year Recital is Thursday afternoon, so I'm going to be pretty preoccupied until Friday. If you email me, then my response may be delayed.

That is a grab from the allofMP3.com site. Whether or not it's legal in Russia is dubious enough, but in the rest of the world, it's a certain no. Today, the British Phonographic Industry announced the those masterminds behind allofMP3.com will be sued in a British court. Interesting though is the fact that the people who have bought music from allofMP3.com will not be sued. A generous announcement from the music industry indeed. I've not used allofMP3.com - purely because I don't buy much digital music, however if you are using allofMP3.com, now might be a good time to stock up on downloads - although that is not an endorsement on my part of a highly dubious service. I'm a musiciaan after all, and would prefer that you properly remunerated musicians for their work (even if the labels get the majority of your hard earned cash).

* allofMP3.com charges for downloads based on their file size (and a track comes to about £0.04!)

• Hans Zimmer - Lion King, Gladiator
  
• Michael Giacchino - Composer for Lost, The Incredibles, Mission Impossible 3
  
• Bond Films